


Ex-Lovers Lake

by Mosscity



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Also Lucas and max are the most compatible couple in st because canon annoys me, Gen, I love him as much as the next person but our boys an emotional mess, Lucas just wants to hang out with his gf but mikes being a bitch baby, Mike basically has a tantrum sorry, Minor cursing, No beta read we die liek men, No offense to you wheeler, So don’t read if you don’t want to deal with possible spoilers, Suicidal ideation (very brief but just in case), This is based on theories that they’ll have a temporary break up @ the beginning of season three, Wills gay, break-ups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 17:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19398859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosscity/pseuds/Mosscity
Summary: Mike and The Boys(tm) go to Lovers Lake after him and Jane split up. Takes place in the summer of ‘85.





	Ex-Lovers Lake

**Author's Note:**

> 4 liek five days I waz @ a cabin in the woods w/out reception so I decided to write this in my free time there. Now that I’m back and I’ve seen some of the new content/ads, I’m kinda unhappy with how this fits with the events of the theorized ‘day’ in which Jane and Mike break up, but I might as well post this anyways.

Lovers Lake is high up, resting on the peaks of one of the only inclines in notoriously level Hawkins, so rarely can any fertilizer drain down into it’s depths and muck up its muddy blue lacustrine quality (excluding the flood of 75, in which half the town had to evacuate and the woods turned quagmire. The Byers stayed with the Wheelers those few freshet nights). The lake, of course, got its name from being a regular rendezvous’ for darlings engaging in trysts—to put it decently—and it’s easy to understand why. The water grass swaying gently in the warm breeze, light bouncing playfully off the water, and the iconic overpass stretching over it’s girth bestows a perfectly romantic hiding place for any couple seeking privacy. Not that Will Byers should ever, would ever, _could_ ever attend such a ceremony, nosiree. The vandalism on the bridges walls can attest to that.

“This is such bullshit!!!” Mike Wheeler chucks another stone into the water. It plops candidly and sends spray across the body. “It’s not  my fault she’s overreacting. She just wants me all to herself, that’s all. Can’t I have some me time with my friends? Or is that just  too much to ask for from Ms. All Powerful Psychic  _Brat_?” 

Will cringes at the petty slander, but decides against responding to it. Jane is anything but a brat, and Mike knows that better than anyone. He’s just pissed off because of the break up.

As an alternative, he leans forward, resting his forearms on his femurs, gripping his knees devotedly with white-knuckled hands, and looks beyond Mike to Lucas Sinclair, who is staring at him too. His lips are pursed, taut, eyes anxiously hooded under bushy eyebrows, and he’s banging his calf persistently on the wood of the jetty. He’s probably worried about Max. Will doesn’t regard him for too long, because if he does his gaze will flick to his biceps, or Lucas’s dark glittery eyes will see something a little too soft under his fellow antsy stare. Will looks away to scrutinize Mike. 

Mike is safer, because he has a collar that wraps round his neck, and sleeves that go down to his deltoids.

“And it’s not like we haven’t hung out, we were literally sucking face yesterday! With tongue!!! In. Her.  _Bed_ . It’s so un-fucking-fair!” Another rock escapes from the stack. It lands farther than the preceding stone, roughly 30 feet from the dock. 

Will, again, decides not to mention that Jane didn’t break it off because he wasn’t making time for her. He doesn’t mention that if Mike didn’t lie about where he was going, they wouldn’t be in this situation: Having to reassure Mike that he did nothing wrong while he hurls miscellanea into Lovers Lake. The aforementioned setting must have some sort of emotional significance to Mike if he brought him and Lucas here, but Will refuses to consider why.

“It just,” One rock. “Isn’t,” Another, his last oblation. “Fair!!!—wait—“ Mike ceases glaring daggers at nothing to eye his rock pile, now devoid of nothing but grimy sand and dust. He had launched empty air. With a disgruntled sound he hoists himself up, kicks the dirt into the crevices between the wooden boards, and stomps over to the beach—if you could call a shore lined with nothing but jagged rocks a beach—and kneels down to refill his rounds. He mutters darkly under his breath with each cartridge nabbed.

Will and Lucas share another look; this time, Lucas’s lips are off center, his jaw working around methodically the way that it does when he’s thinking. Will can feel his own feet flexing and cracking with the familiar mute _pop_ of his joints.

Suddenly, Lucas’s mouth stops mulling, and he turns towards Mike, who’s left fist is clutching his incomplete hoard of meticulously selected bullets. He’s still crouching over the beach, facing away from them, so Will takes great care to not notice the picturesque curve of his long, lean back, his cadmium shirt striking against the drab tawny-gray of the shore. His dark, frizzy, _enchanting_ hair puffs out endearingly, sun tinted off its curves and slopes like some sort of jewel. If Will could see Mike’s face, he’s sure his lip would be stuck (enticingly) under his crooked teeth, brow furrowed with a little crease in the center and thick lashes clumped endearingly together. Will could stare at that face all day, and he’s sure that all his time spent ogling would cultivate into longer.

OK, maybe he is noticing.

“Hey, Mike...” Lucas starts, hesitant and tenuous, jerking Will out of his reverie. Will can see Mike’s shoulders stiffen. “I know it’s hard right now, but, uh—“ He brings his arm up to scratch at the small of his neck, tilting his hat astray in a way that Will can only call cute. “—we’re here for you, e-every step of the way.”

“Yeah, Mike!” Will jumps to add. “We understand how y-“

Mike whirls towards them, face red and clammy with fury. Will takes back every compliment he just gave the Paladin.

“No,  _Will_ ,” he scoffs, his lilt outraged and heated and unabashedly  _pissed_ . “Shut the hell up!” His free hand points accursedly at him, finger twitching with rage.

“ _You_ don't understand because the only experience you’ve had with girls involves running off to hide in a bathroom stall whenever one looks at you the wrong way,” Mike’s finger trains to Lucas. “And _you_ don’t understand because you and Max haven’t had a fight, like,  _ever_ ! None of you get it so just shut the fuck up and let me be mad!!!”

Mike heaves, chest billowing out and concaving in. His eyes are frenzied, bloodshot sanguine in the margins, careening to look at anything but Lucas or himself. Will feels about the same.

He pivots, his back to them again, and continues picking up rocks. One pocket is bulging with them, his fist now empty.

Will resists the urge to rock in place, cradle his head between his thighs, and cry. He’ll have plenty of time to do that later. He compromises by trembling irrepressibly and chiseling crescents into his knees. His nails break the skin, but he can scarcely sense the pain, as if his brain is submerged in molasses rather than cerebrospinal fluid. He spreads his legs, looking down into the choppy loch of  _Lovers_ Lake—ironic, considering the circumstances— and observes the spume licking desperately at the pillars, infested with putrefaction. Will contemplates letting them guzzle him up too, sinking down into the murky black and ensnaring himself in the forests of seaweed so he doesn’t have to see himself, or Mike, again. 

He wonders if that’s what it would have been like in the Quarry.

_No, no_ . Wills head shudders, as if to shake off his ideation from it’s grip on his skin, his hair. He watches them tumble off into the water, white hands grasping, frantic and savage.

Mike doesn’t know he’s gay. He’s never told him, or anyone, and he’s never given anyone reason to think he is. Mike’s just angry, and upset, and spat  whatever he’s feeling onto himself and Lucas. It’s an asshole move, but Mike has always been an all-bark, no-bite sort of guy. It doesn’t mean anything, no matter how much it hurts.

Will takes another gander at Lucas.

His profile is clenched up, his ebony hands chalky from gripping onto the ledge of the jetty. His face isn’t angry, in spite of the fact. Rather, he appears conflicted, holding his breath and working his jaw around again. He quits knocking his calves, and lifts his knees to his chest, pushing out his chin almost absurdly to rest on the alluded to. He breathes, chest breaking with the plethora of air racing out his trachea, and stands up. Walking over to the rock beach, which Mike is still scrutinizing thoroughly, he bends down and starts collecting his own slugs, albeit more thoughtlessly. Will decides to join them.

His and Mike’s elbows bump together sporadically with each grab at a stone. Every breach of personal space sends a shiver crawling up his spine, and he doesn’t even feel the contents of his pockets and paws until he’s already thrown one into the lake, back at the wharf, a satisfying _slosh_ following it’s introduction into the waters stratum.

_Mike was right to do this_ , Will thinks, chucking another stone that is easily surpassed by Lucas’s expert arm.  _It really eats up your anger._

For a few minutes more the three boys lallygag, tension electrifying the air like open cables, but none having the courage to unplug the wire from it’s socket. Will feels Mike’s nose nudge into his shoulder, and Lucas’s hand twitch, almost imperceptible, against his arm. That’s as much of an apology he’s going to get until the dust settles. He throws another rock.

Mike’s warm breath leaves perspiration on his shirt, the presence muggy and brackish, but not unwelcome. He throws another rock.

Will wishes he was smarter, or less cowardly, so he could have something to say to any of them. He presumes that Lucas and Mike feel about the same. Despite Mike’s current insolence, Will _does_ want to help him. No best friend of his should have to go through a break up on their own, unless they personally want to. That variable has no weight here, though, taking into account Mike’s head on his shoulder. 

‘Think smart, Byers. think-‘ while ruminating on how to progress from this standstill his train of thought short circuits, as does his arm’s course of motion, and his ammunition is neutralized as it falls from Will’s grip. He hears it ricochet off the jetty, and slow somewhere before the ledge.

Think wise.

“What do you guys think of starting a campaign?”

**Author's Note:**

> thjs sucks lol


End file.
